C158

Taking advantage of how busy the Jiang Family was during this period of time, Xu Yanzhu smoothly arranged for the two women to appear by her side as maids sent over by her mother's Third Uncle.

Of course, in order to not let her lies be exposed, Xu Yanzhu still asked Cui Hua to run over to the Third Aunt and tell him that she had secretly bought two girls, and now that she had trained for half a year, they both had some martial arts skills. In the future, she would stay by her side to protect herself.

She reckoned that in another month, Cui Hua would be able to teach them everything she knew and she would be able to return to the Xu Family.

Because of this reason, Cui Hua also ran towards the Xu Family happily. As for when exactly the two girls were bought by the First Miss, Cui Hua did not care, she only thought that she secretly bought them.

After all, he was his master. It was not surprising that he did not know some things.

When Dong Shu received the message from Xu Yanzhu, nothing unexpected happened. She had long wanted to make Cui Hua come back, and now that she could see hope, she could only help to lie, and it wouldn't be difficult to do so.

Dong Shu accepted this matter, which meant that Xu Shiqiu had also accepted this matter.

Only, the current Xu Shiqiu did not have time to settle these small matters. Ever since he returned home that night, he did not return home, but only waited for the time to join forces and exercise.

For this day, Xu Shiqiu had prepared for a long time, even the soldiers under his command had made sufficient preparations for this fight.

Especially the soldiers who were previously selected as Iron Eagle Brigade, they understood clearly that the main general had asked for this time's sparring exercise for their sake.

Before this, they had only been training and had never fought in actual combat. After this competition, if their results weren't shameful, they would have to prepare to fight in actual combat.

This might be the last time they would be able to leave the camp without any worries for their lives.

Finally, the agreed upon day of the competition. In order to wait for the Prince Duan in the capital and the few officials sent by the Emperor Ruikang, Xu Shiqiu set the starting time to noon.

Starting at noon today, and ending at noon the next day.

This left Prince Duan and the rest time to return to the capital. This way, they would be able to commend the soldiers for their good performance in the afternoon half a day.

With regards to Xu Shiqiu's arrangements, Prince Duan and the few officials who came with him were extremely satisfied.

As for the others, Xu Shiqiu did not care about their opinions. Although this time they were designing the bearded man and the long-faced warrior general, it was also to give the soldiers under him a chance to train.

According to the plan, Xu Shiqiu and his soldiers had left the military camp the afternoon of the previous day, leaving the military camp to the soldiers who needed to stay behind to redeploy and defend.

In order to viciously attack Xu Shiqiu, the few generals that were left behind to discuss this with each other, after half a day, had split their troops into two teams.

One group remained within the military camp, while the other entered the mountains behind the military camp.

Because they separated the troops, the troops under Xu Shiqiu's command had two missions at the same time. One was to seize the army camp, and the other was to find the other troop that could hide deep in the mountains and take the Inscription away.

"What do you think? Are you confident?"

The Prince Duan looked at Xu Shiqiu, and just as he finished speaking with a smile on his face, he heard Xu Shiqiu, who was standing beside him, say a military salute, "This general has confidence in them!"

Hearing Xu Shiqiu's affirmation, and seeing his self-confidence, the Prince Duan nodded his head: "Before this king came, brother had told me, that if your soldiers can really win this time, I can let them go out a round a year ago."

Xu Shiqiu understood the meaning behind Prince Duan's words, and his eyes lit up, if Emperor Ruikang were to say that they needed to go out, it must be for real combat.

"Prince, don't worry. This time, they will definitely leave before the new year!" Saying that, Xu Shiqiu gave a mysterious smile, obviously he already had the chance of winning.

Prince Duan didn't know where Xu Shiqiu got the confidence to win, but he didn't say much.

Seeing that Prince Duan did not ask any further, Xu Shiqiu heaved a sigh of relief.

Since he was the one who instigated the sparring exercise this time, he must have made a lot of preparations. At the very least, he left a trump card in his hand so that his soldiers would not lose.

Just as the Prince Duan and Xu Shiqiu were talking, the two sides had already finished preparing. Xu Shiqiu also left the Prince Duan and rushed to the temporary tent his soldiers had set up.

Just as Xu Shiqiu arrived, Zhang Ping and Ye Shuo, as well as Xu Jie and Xu Yanhao all stood up at the same time and bowed to him.

Xu Shiqiu waved his hand, letting them all sit down, then said to the four of them: "We can just follow the plan directly later. Zhang Ping and Xu Jie will be in charge of seizing the army camp, Ye Shuo and Yanhao you two brothers will be in charge of 'killing' the other group of people who took the talismans away."

In regards to the two missions, they both believed that the latter was more difficult than the former and would allow Xu Yanhao to participate as well.

Xu Yanhao was very excited that the Third Uncle would assign him such a mission. After his cousin told him the arrangements of the Third Uncle, he agreed without hesitation.

"This time, the four of you will be in the lead. You must take care of all of them." Victory is nothing, but we don't only have to win, we have to make them accept our victory wholeheartedly. " After saying this, Xu Shiqiu thought for a moment, and said in the end: "And what I had said before, on the battlefield, any strategy can be used, as long as you can control it."

Xu Jie and Ye Shuo snickered upon hearing this. Although the two of them were inferior in seniority to Xu Shiqiu and were much younger, they were both rare experts in using strategies, and their relationship became better along with the tactics that Xu Shiqiu taught him.

The most important thing was that the two of them felt that Xu Shiqiu was right. As long as they could win, using some tricks really wasn't much.

As for Zhang Ping, maybe it was because he was born, he did not dare to use too many tactics, so Xu Shiqiu divided the four of them this way.

When the four placed an order in front of Xu Shiqiu, they quickly left the tent together.

After the four of them left, Xu Shiqiu called for a troop of soldiers, and quickly left the camp.

He wouldn't wait here obediently for someone to 'assassinate' him.

It was agreed that once an accident happened to the two generals of each side, even if the other team failed both missions, it would still be a victory.

No one knew about Xu Shiqiu's departure, because Xu Shiqiu had long ago found a soldier with a similar physique to him.

As for him, he had naturally changed into the uniform of an ordinary soldier and disappeared from everyone's sight.

On the first afternoon, the soldiers that were guarding the army camp did not wait for the attack from Xu Shiqiu's subordinates. They originally thought that they were afraid or did not know what their arrangements were, but during dinner time, rows of big pots were set up opposite of them.

If the pot was not filled with large chunks of pork cooked with the ingredients prepared by Dong Shu, then it would be filled with lamb stewed with shredded leek (radish) that had just been collected.

In addition to the two dishes, the aides busied themselves with making pancakes made of white and bean noodles and rice mixed with steamed rice and sorghum.

Although the main course was not the pure white noodle soup or the pure white rice, the two meat dishes that drifted in the wind were enough to attract people.

The soldiers in the military camp across the street sniffed the smell from the other side and looked at their own bowls filled with meager food. There was almost no trace of oily food, and they were filled with resentment.

They all knew that for the other party to be able to eat all these, it was not because of the money provided, but was because of Xu Shiqiu, the main general, giving them additional benefits.

Their generals had caused trouble for this matter before, but Xu Shiqiu had long reported that his subordinates had trained very hard, and it was impossible for them to not eat good things often.

Furthermore, Xu Shiqiu always said on the surface that his wife asked someone to deliver it to his.

Then why did his wife have this? That was because His Majesty had given him too many rewards.

So in the end, all this credit was pushed onto His Majesty.

The Emperor Ruikang was naturally happy, and because of this matter, he even specially picked out a few things from his own warehouse to bestow to Dong Shu.

He really didn't have much money in his personal storage.

As for the funding from the imperial government, before Xu Shiqiu's soldiers could do anything, it would not be good for him to get the funding from the Ministry of Revenue.

Let's not talk about these things for now. Outside the military camp in the outskirts of the city, the soldiers under Xu Shiqiu's command were quickly chopped into finger-thick pieces after the big pieces of meat were cooked.

Then, it was the specially prepared sauce that was poured onto the thick pieces of meat.

With the thick slices of pork out of the pot, the mutton soup is also good.

In addition to these two meat dishes, the auxiliary team also mixed a wild vegetable. They ate too much meat, so they also had to eat some vegetarian dishes.

The soldiers that were left behind to guard the barracks just watched as the soldiers across from them ate meat in big mouthfuls. They did not control their rations to eat as they pleased.

They began to envy each other by cooking meat from the opposite side until they finished eating. Then they sighed and prepared to continue their defense.

However, just as they were about to continue defending, the soldiers on the opposing side who had eaten their fill were already in position. Clearly, they were preparing to attack the army camp.

Neither the generals nor the soldiers who were stationed in the opposing camp had expected that the opposing troops would choose to attack at this time.

They thought they wouldn't attack until the latter part of the night.

However, now that they saw that they were ready to attack, they naturally couldn't sit still and wait for death. Orders were sent out from the general's tent.

After all, it was already autumn and the sky quickly darkened after dinner.

Due to the good food of Xu Shiqiu's soldiers, they could occasionally eat an egg in the morning, and also eat some animal organs. Even if the sky darkened, it did not affect their eyesight at all.

On the other hand, the other side couldn't do it.

If they didn't eat well, the main generals would deduct their pay. As soon as the sky darkened, they wouldn't be able to see too clearly.

Although there were many fires lit in the military camp, they were still unable to move too far away from the bonfire.

It was only now that the soldiers standing guard realized that the opponent had chosen to attack at night because they could not see too clearly at night.

Other than the military camp that they were stationed at, even though the two groups of people in the mountains hadn't met yet, there were still small squads that had encountered each other.

The soldiers under Xu Shiqiu were very ruthless, upon discovering a person, they would immediately attack and 'kill' him, and then the people who were judged to be dead would be brought out of the battlefield.

While the two parties were fighting, two figures stealthily left the camp in the mountains while the sky was still dark. They rode their horses, preparing to rush to the capital city.